APEC to discuss growth after crisis, economic integration.

SINGAPORE, Nov. 8 Kyodo

Government and business leaders in the Asia-Pacific region will gather this week in Singapore to discuss measures to ensure economic growth after the global crisis and strengthen unity in the region, with Japan deepening its commitment before chairing the forum next year.

The 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group, which accounts for 53 percent of the world's economic output, 40 percent of population and 44 percent of global trade, sets two main themes for this year's meetings -- sustaining growth and connecting the region.

As the global economy has shown signs of upturns after the slowdown since last year with economic stimulus policies by each government, APEC members, including Japan, China and the United States, will discuss how to set the recovery on a solid footing.

Singapore, this year's chair, looks beyond supporting the recovery. Given the gap over the pace of development between economies, or even between sectors in a county's society, it considers the need ''to ensure that future growth is more inclusive,'' said a draft of the joint statement to be issued after the Nov. 14 to 15 summit.

APEC ''will undertake structural adjustments that will enhance opportunities for all segments of our societies to benefit from growth,'' according to the draft statement obtained by Kyodo News.

To accelerate regional economic integration, APEC leaders and ministers will study a proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific. They are likely to instruct their officials to identify ways to create the free trade bloc.

The move could accelerate a recently heated debate over which multilateral regional institutions could be the most suitable for economic integration in the region. The debate is also about whether the United States should directly join such frameworks with its Asian partners.

If their integration is APEC-based, the door is no doubt open for Washington. In Asia, however, there is another multilateral institution, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which holds summits with Japan, China and South Korea known as ASEAN-plus-three and is also an integral part of the East Asia Summit, joined by the three countries plus India, Australia and New Zealand.

Japan has recently proposed turning the EAS into an ''East Asian community,'' though Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has left vague whether the United States, Tokyo's main ally, should be completely expelled. China, meanwhile, is seen as pressing for an integration involving only ASEAN-plus-three nations, diplomatic sources said.

U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to meet ASEAN leaders on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Singapore apparently as part of efforts to prevent a regional community without the United States from becoming established in Asia.

The fight against climate change is also high on the agenda during the APEC week. The leaders will reaffirm their commitment ''to reaching a good agreement'' at a key U.N. climate change conference next month in Copenhagen, the draft said.

APEC will express full support to multilateral trading systems and repeat its pledge to reject protectionist measures in international trade, which has been on the rise after the crisis hit the global economy.

World Trade Organization Director-General Pascal Lamy will be in Singapore to urge APEC ministers and leaders make further commitment to concluding the stalled Doha Round liberalization talks within next year.

The draft statement warns of the delayed process, saying, ''We are concerned that the high level political commitment to concluding the Doha Round has yet to be translated into substantive progress in the negotiations.''

APEC meetings start with senor official-level talks on Sunday and Monday, which is followed by the ministerial meeting on Wednesday and Thursday and the summit on Saturday and Sunday.

From Japan, Hatoyama, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Economy Trade and Industry Minister Masayuki Naoshima will attend the meetings. The prime minister is scheduled to deliver a speech on Saturday to a gathering of corporate executives in the region.

Japan will accelerate its commitment to APEC as it will take the forum's chairmanship right after the week. In 2010, the more developed members of APEC are supposed to achieve their goals of trade and investment liberalization, set 16 years earlier.

Given the Bogor goals, named after the Indonesian city where APEC leaders reached the agreement in 1994, Japan must lead reviewing APEC's works in the past for its goals of trade and investment liberalization.

It also has to ''suggest possible directions for APEC to take in the future and present less developed economies with growth models,'' a Japanese official said.

The Bogor goals, implemented under the Osaka Action Plan charted at the 1995 APEC summit in the Japanese city, also set the liberalization target for less developed members in 2020.

APEC was launched in 1989 as a nonbinding gathering to boost trade among Pacific Rim nations. But its focus has broadened in recent year to include such issues as security.

Its current members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.